Chapter 20

Maria's P.O.V

Thomas and I sat on a bench in the park near my apartment. "Well, for starters what is your family like? I've never actually met them, besides your mother you know." I said and Thomas chuckled then said "well, my father is a kind man who cares deeply about others, but he works often and is rarely ever home. My mother is a sad woman. I don't think I can really remember a time where she wasn't frowning. Yes, through the years she has smiled but not really smiled. Her smiles show no joy, no real happiness like they should. I worry for her but know she will be alright. She likes you, I can tell. My younger sister Katherine was sent to boarding school three years ago when she was 13 and hasn't made an appearance since." Thomas` face was sad in talking about his family and I actually started to feel sorry for him. I grabbed his hand and squeezed it and he looked up at me for a moment then said "what else would you like to know?" "everything." Was my response and Thomas once again smiled at me and told me all about his life. "Well, I guess I'll start off from when I was 16 because anything before that is pretty much just about my mother's depression and my father's lack of being in our lives. When I was 16 I was walking through the park one day when two men were fighting. One of the men was quite a bit older then the other. He had to be as old as my father was at the time. I watched as he killed the younger man in cold blood, just like he didn't matter to the world. I ran as fast as I could to get away from what I had seen, but the visions haunted me, so I did some research and found the older man and followed him into an alley way." Thomas stopped for a second and I squeezed his hand urging him to go on and before he did he looked me in the eyes and said "Annabel, before I continue you have to promise me that you will not hold what I am about to tell you against me. Please." I caught a tear start to form in his eye and nodded. "When I found the man I told him what I had seen and he charged at me, he tried to kill me Annabel. I didn't know what to do so I seized the opportunity that was held out before me. There was a shard of glass from a broken beer bottle in the alley way. I ran to it, picked it up and stabbed the man with it repeatedly until he took his last breath." Thomas began to cry then and I wrapped my arms around him. "There's more." He said then continued on with his story. "Before the man died he spoke to me. He told me that he had a daughter named Maria, and that he wanted me to tell her that he loved her dearly." As Thomas said this my heat stopped. I froze completely. "Thomas." I said carefully. "What was the man's the name?" I sat there on that bench waiting for his answer praying that it wouldn't be what I expected it to be. "Meriwether." As soon as the name left his lips I ran. I ran faster then I had ever run in my life. The tears streaming down hard. When I made it back to the apartment I dropped to the ground just as I was closing the door behind me. Mrs. Heliotrope entered the room just after I had gotten home. "Maria! Maria what is wrong?" Mrs. Heliotrope said as she knelt beside me and gathered me up in her arms. "He killed father." I said through my tears. "What? Who did Maria?" Mrs. Heliotrope asked in confusion. "Thomas did." And with that I told her the entire story.